Tom Perrotta Quotes

No author ever drew a character consistent to human nature, but he was forced to ascribe to it many inconsistencies.

As a reader, I much prefer to read a book where people embody all kinds of ideas and everybody is making mistakes.

It seems to me that most characters, in anything, are flawed in some way, just like most people. You look for the good in the flawed people and vice versa, and then try and make them appealing in some way.

I know myself - I cannot just play a cliche. It has to be a character; it has to be written with the complexity of the human being behind. Could be bad, could be good, could be someone we would hate, but still, I need a reason for that influence, and I need to understand why.

I'm interested in writing that explores all sides of human beings.

I think heroes who are not flawed are not believable.

Do I want a character who just has the best motives and the best intentions, zero flaws, and is doing things for the right reasons? No!

In the best stories, people are morally complex; they are flawed. We read them because the world is flawed, and we want to see it truthfully represented. And because it can be thrilling to be shocked and upset, and even to feel, for chilling moments, what it's like to be a bad person.

What I love about 'Breaking Bad' is the reflection of many people's - it's more real in terms of people have faults, people have character traits that they don't like about themselves. It resembles more of what the human journey really is and it's less fantastic and hero-driven than other characters and shows that we watch.

I'm attracted to playing characters that have flaws.

I think all of us, under certain circumstances, could be capable of some very despicable acts. And that's why, over the years, in my movies I've had characters who didn't care what people thought about them. We try to be as true to them as possible and maybe see part of ourselves in there that we may not like.

I like playing characters with internal problems.

All of my characters are less than perfect.

I work very hard at creating complex characters, a mix of positives and negatives. They are all flawed. I believe flaws are almost universal, and they help us understand, sympathise and, paradoxically, feel closer to such characters.

I don't want a perfect character, I want a character who has, as strange as it sounds, some humanity, some flaws, some needs.

In a novel, if you're any good, you don't just have good people or bad people. You have complicated people. You have real people.

I like playing flawed characters, people who aren't perfect.

I never appreciated 'positive heroes' in literature. They are almost always cliches, copies of copies, until the model is exhausted. I prefer perplexity, doubt, uncertainty, not just because it provides a more 'productive' literary raw material, but because that is the way we humans really are.

I think I am more attracted to characters with a subtext, whatever that is and they don't necessarily have to be virtuous, but they have to at least be human.

With all the main characters that I write, it's always very important to me that they have good and bad aspects of their personality. It's important to me that they're complicated and that they're human.

I am constantly interested in people who society calls 'bad' because I don't like to just buy into something that everybody's going to say. I want to investigate that for myself. With a character, you get to fully investigate that emotionally and understand the parts of them that are in pain and scared and are good. That's human.

I'm more comfortable writing traditional protagonists. But 'Steve Jobs' and 'The Social Network' have antiheroes. I like to write antiheroes as if they're making their case to God about why they should be allowed into heaven. I have to find something in that character that is like me and write to that.

If your character is just out there acting a fool, viewers are gonna say, 'Why am I watching this?' But if he's whispering, 'I don't really want to die,' there's a level of vulnerability cemented in these bad characters.

Having been raised by actors who love moral ambiguity and flawed protagonists, I feel like it's sort of in the blood to want to take it on.

It's very hard to play a man without any flaws.